Monday, December 17, 2007

When last we read: Lois donated her handy-dandy color-blind O- blood to a wounded Dave. She sat tensely waiting, praying he would open his eyes. Will he? It's time to find out in the thrilling conclusion to I AM CURIOUS BLACK!

Miraculously, Dave opens his eyes. Who knew that a pint of blood was a cure for a gunshot wound to the chest? It's not like anyone operated on him. (Dave looks like he's never seen her before in his life. Either that or he sucked on a lemon.)

Now that Dave is okay, it's time for Lois to confront Superman, so that we can tie all this into the splash page. She asks him if he'd marry her even if she remained black.

Superman is so upset that one of the parts of his S emblem is not inked. Now that's upset! He reminds her that he is an alien -- the universal outsider -- and that his skin is tougher than steel (funny, him mentioning his skin. Almost sounds like a set-up for a retort. Nah, Lois wouldn't take that bait). Lois says, "But... your skin is the right color!" (So is yours, Lois, or have you forgotten that you've only been black for a few hours?) (I kept waiting for him to say, "It's pure coincidence that Krypton was populated only by white people that wear headbands! Don't you see the irony, Lois? I could be wearing a headband right now -- Would you marry a man in a headband? Well, would you???")

So Supes goes into his 'my enemies, blah blah, deadly danger, blah, blah..." until Lois accuses him of being a broken record (This was back in the days when they had records instead of CDs, so that the saying makes sense, unlike nowadays!).

But before she becomes a broken record about being black, she suddenly begins to change. She's black. She's Hispanic. She's whitey, once again. Apparently, it didn't last the usual 24 hours this time. (She says she feels like she's shedding her skin. So the color was like a lizard's scales or something? That's just weird.)

The nurse comes in to tell her ol' Dave has been asking for her, but gosh golly, the nurse sure gets a shock. Some white girl stole that sister's clothes! Nah, she somehow immediately grasps that Lois, whom she had only known as black, had suddenly turned into a white woman. I guess we have to chalk this one up to living in a world where people can fly and burn things with their eyes. It's tough to surprise the ordinary Joe and Jane for long.

Lois is torn. Does she really want to see him now? Now that she's white? "He called me whitey! His enemy! What will he say now?" Superman says, "You must see him, Lois, or you'll never find out! If he still hates you... with your blood in his veins... there may never be peace in this world!" (No pressure or anything. The fate of the world rests on this moment, but don't be nervous.)

The last page has no captions or dialogue. Here it is:

There is hope after all! Peace can prevail! Dave was also able to figure out that Lois is the black woman who gave him blood and now she's a white woman and hey, isn't that the same woman who passed by on the street, but what does it matter since we're all brothers and sisters under our skin. Or something like that.